


Direction

by StradTheMaker



Category: The Morning Show (TV 2019)
Genre: Dom/sub, Dom/sub Undertones, F/F, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:20:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24868285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StradTheMaker/pseuds/StradTheMaker
Summary: Alex and Bradley are finding a rhythm as cohosts and Alex provides direction for how to further improve their on-air chemistry. Power dynamics abound. Top!Alex and a little more yielding Bradley than we're used to seeing.
Relationships: Bradley Jackson/Alex Levy
Comments: 25
Kudos: 52





	1. Sit

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: This story is set in the midst of the first season. Post-Mitch discovery, pre-UBA reckoning. Definitely explicit. Haven't yet figured out yet whether I'll continue this story or whether it will remain a smutty little vignette. Let me know in the comments?

Bradley Jackson has never been good at taking direction. As a little girl with a big mouth growing up in West Virginia, Bradley regularly got the feedback that she should keep her mouth closed and her legs crossed. She never listened to either suggestion for better or for worse. 

Even now in her career as a journalist Bradley regularly steamrolled over deadlines, social conventions, other’s good graces and even the occasional line of police tape. 

These memories come rushing back to Bradley as she stands, mouth agape, gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling windows in Alex Levy’s Upper East Side penthouse. Bradley is embarrassed to admit that the scale of the metropolis still takes her breath away at night. She is transported from her reverie by the clinking of wine glasses behind her.

“Sorry.” She spits as Alex approaches her, sauntering over and surveying the city like it was her kingdom. 

Alex ignores her apology for nothing and starts talking shop, “If we’re going to workshop another Me Too idiot story tonight, I figured we’d need this.” Alex holds a bottle of red wine aloft. Bradley admittedly knew little about wine except that sulfites hurt like a bitch the morning after but she can tell by the vintage that the bottle’s expensive.

“I don’t know, Alex. If we need to devote an entire block in tomorrow’s show to sexual harassment in college sports, we may want to start with whiskey. Why kid ourselves?” Bradley and Alex share a wry smile. It's all they can do at this point.

Alex nods her head toward a chic sofa and leads Bradley over to sit down. She’d laid out takeout containers across the coffee table. “I’m glad you came over tonight.” 

Bradley’s still guarded, “Me too.”

“It just makes sense to spend some time prepping this story given Mitch and his bullshit antics. We need to get this right.”

“I think it’s really smart.” 

“You sound surprised,” Alex says haughtily. 

Bradley breaks apart her wooden chopsticks and locks eyes with the elegant blonde--“Dressed down” but still fresh out of a Prada catalogue.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Bradley blurts.

“I’m a journalist same as you, Bradley. A pretty decent one.” Alex nods across the room to her mantle, gleaming with accolades from the States and across the globe. At the very edge of the mantle stands the award Bradley watched her accept the night Alex turned her world on its head.

Bradley is suddenly self-conscious and walks back her surprise. “I just meant that, you always seem so busy that I wasn’t sure if you could prioritize it.”

“I prioritize things that are important to me. These women have important stories to tell. I want us to get it right.” Alex doesn’t break Bradley’s gaze.

“Absolutely.” Bradley sinks deeper into the couch. There was something about Alex that made her feel perpetually on the edge—of abandon, of ruin, of some kind of intrigue. It makes her as electrified as it does uneasy. Bradley was never one to shirk risks or shy away from beautiful blondes, for that matter. 

Alex lowers her defenses and lets herself furtively drink in the other woman from the corner of her eye. Alex feels unsettled by how captivating the brunette is to herself and others. Bradley Jackson: “The Truth Teller.” She feels at once drawn to and competitive with her cohost. 

“You’re looking pretty dressed up for a workshop and wine session, Bradley. Skirt, heels and all.”

Bradley doesn’t look up from her food this time, but quietly slips off her heels and tucks her legs under her body.

“You don’t have to dress up for me.” Alex smirks. 

Bradley swears she can feel Alex’s gaze rake across her body, but she refuses to meet it. Bradley’s only retort is a quiet, “I didn’t.”

“There’s a secret to really good on-air chemistry, you know.” Alex casually chop-sticks her way through the box of dumplings. 

“Oh?” Bradley sighs, steeling herself for a lecture from the vaunted anchor.

“Mhm.” Alex powers through, chewing thoughtfully. “You’ve been a lone wolf field correspondent for too long.”

Bradley has to chuckle at that, “A lone wolf? Howling at the moon like a crazy person outside a coal mine?”

“You’re too hard on yourself.” Alex offers with a surprising tenderness that pulls Bradley’s attention from her Pad Thai, “Aren’t you going to ask me the secret to really good on-air chemistry, Bradley?”

“We have good on-air chemistry.” 

“We do. I said ‘really good.’”

“Tell me.” Bradley found commands usually came easier to her than questions. Alex’s unwavering eye contact and easy confidence caught her off-guard. Perhaps she’s finally met her match, she thinks.  
Alex leans back into the couch and props her head on her hand, golden hair cascading down her shoulders like a lion’s mane. She makes sure to pause until Bradley looks up at her, “Cohosts who have really good chemistry have almost always slept together.”

Bradley’s entire body tenses and a hot flush courses through her veins. She tries to keep Alex’s steady gaze, those piercing gray-blue eyes studying her, appraising her. Alex looks her guest up and down with abandon and it makes the brunette’s pulse quicken. 

Alex smirks when Bradley looks down into her lap, swirling her wine glass. This is a bit like breaking a mare, Alex thinks. The one good thing her father gave her was an appreciation for horses, though the idiot had gambled all their money away at the track weekend after weekend. Bradley is beautiful, wild, and full of bluster—not easy to bridle or break.

Bradley aches to lean deeper into the couch, to close the chasm of space between them. Her pride bucks at such a surrender and she instead adopts a reporter’s tone, “So obviously you slept with Mitch, too.” 

Anger flashes across Alex’s face only for a moment, before she changes course, “I did. I wasn’t victimized. I knew what I was doing.”

“Like Mitch knew what he was doing?”

Bradley’s words sting. “You can’t compare the two of us.”

“No?” Bradley clatters her wine glass down on the coffee table. “What is this, then?” Bradley motions to the wine and takeout boxes, the candles artfully lit around the room. “Is this like your casting couch?”

Alex chortles and rises from her recline, sitting up to stare at Bradley, face to face, their knees touching as Bradley’s breath catches in her throat.

“God, will you give me some credit? I’m not Mitch. I don’t need to take advantage of vulnerable women to get laid.”

Bradley clutches the couch beside her as if it’s the only thing anchoring her to this earth. She is acutely aware of how gracefully Alex’s knee has slid from outside to inside her own, gently entwining them.

“And give yourself some credit, Bradley. I said I wanted a partner—that we were equals.” Alex has to laugh, “Casting couch? Jesus Christ.”

Bradley searches the blonde’s face for any sign of deceit. She considers herself well-studied in the art of lying—other’s lies and her own occasional self-delusion.

“Vulnerable women?” is the only response Bradley can muster.

Alex cocks an eyebrow in response, challenging Bradley to further articulate. The brunette’s voice quakes uncharacteristically, “So you’re saying that you’re secretly—”

“I’m not secretly anything, Bradley. I’m whatever the fuck I want to be and I’ll be with whomever the fuck I choose. But People Magazine couldn’t fit that headline on their cover, so yeah, I guess it’s a secret.”

Bradley’s dark blue eyes widen at the surety of Alex’s statement, said as matter-of-factly as the weather.

Alex continues, “Jason and I haven’t really been ‘together’ in at least two years. He hasn’t lived in this apartment for six months.”

Bradley bristles at hearing Alex’s estranged husband’s name. She’d met Jason at the award gala. He seemed like an innocent dolt, a stand-in of convenience for the force of nature whose hand now rests territorially on Bradley’s thigh.

“Have I truly rendered Bradley Jackson speechless?” Alex raises her eyebrows, “What a momentous occasion.”

“Shut up, Alex.” 

“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I’m not looking.” Alex states plainly, opting for the truth.

Bradley isn’t emotionally prepared to lie well, so she swallows her response and looks away, blushing. After a moment, Bradley mutters, “You do it to me on purpose.”

“Do what?” Alex queries, as she knocks the outside of her knee gently against the inside of Bradley’s.

“You do things…”

“Ugh. Use your words, Bradley.” 

“You do things that you know will make me look at you. I used to think you did it just to assert your dominance on the show. But you’re deliberate, charming…” 

Alex smiles as she curls her slender arm around the back of the couch, just grazing Bradley’s shoulders. The older woman lets Bradley trail on.

“…You have this…switch in your walk, when I walk behind you onto the set. You touch my hand, my arm, on camera. More than you need to. Sometimes you do it off camera. I know you can see what it does to me.”

Bradley finally plucks up the courage to meet Alex’s gaze again and when she does, she finds an amused smirk dancing across her pretty lips.

“Oh, fuck off, Alex.” Bradley abruptly stands up and grabs her purse, “You’re trying to make me feel like I’m crazy—”

“Bradley, stop—”

“I’ve said this before: I am not your plaything to use and spit out when you’re done.” Bradley starts towards the door.

Alex quickly strides around her and forcefully grips both of her arms, “Are you always going to paint me as some villain in your story?” 

“Let go of me.”

“No.”

“Alex—”

“Will you just give me the benefit of the doubt for once?”

Bradley’s flexed arms soften under Alex’s grip. She feels, as she almost never does, completely powerless under her direction.

“Sit with me.”


	2. Stay

Bradley sighs and weighs her options. She doesn’t trust Alex fully, but the thought of escaping her magnetic pull tonight seems impossible. Bradley lets her purse fall from her shoulder and drop onto a side table.

Alex takes that as her cue to slide her hand down into Bradley’s and squeeze her reassurance, “Sometimes partners hold hands, remember?” Alex leads Bradley back to her couch where the two women settle in, even closer this time.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll be honest,” Alex steels herself, “I like you.”

“You _like_ me?” Bradley drawls, cocking her signature arched eyebrow.

“Oh, don’t torture me with this, Bradley.” Alex’s temper bubbles to the surface.

“You can barely stand me most days. You just like to saunter by me and touch me occasionally to, I don’t know, punish me…?”

“Good God, I really need to spell this out? It’s because I _like_ you.”

Bradley relaxes into the couch and steadies her gaze on Alex, letting the other woman speak.

“And Bradley, I’m too old to be coy about it…Fred’s focus groups would say 20 years too old.” Alex laughs ruefully.

“Oh, fuck Fred and fuck his focus groups,” Bradley doesn’t couch her words, “you’re the most beautiful woman in every room you walk into.”

Alex lets the weight of Bradley’s last statement hang in the air as she considers a response. The candlelight flickers against Bradley’s delicate features and sets her chestnut hair aflame. Alex studies everything about her.

“Shit, Alex, could you just say something? You make me feel like I’m in high school again.”

Alex smiles softly and shakes her head. With surety, she snakes her arm around the other woman’s waist and pulls her closer. Bradley’s eyes widen as Alex gently lowers her onto her back, the gravity of Alex’s weight pushing Bradley’s legs apart. Once Bradley’s hair trails against the pillow, Alex tangles her fingers inside it and presses her lips against the younger woman’s.

For a split second the two pause, savoring the tenderness of a scene each had played out endlessly in their minds. But once Bradley opens her mouth in surrender, Alex sears a kiss forceful enough to make Bradley whimper her deference.

Alex cares for the other woman but can’t help but feel victorious in her prize. Her competitive nature relishes Bradley spreading her legs and bucking up beneath her.

Alex pulls back from the kiss to look down and admire this wild beauty on her back. She smirks at the moan Bradley sighs when their lips part and strokes her dark hair.

Bradley bristles under the admiration and looks away instinctively.

“No,” Alex whispers as she pulls Bradley’s chin towards her and starts to unbutton down Bradley’s blouse, “I want you to watch me take you.”

With that, Bradley arches her back and rocks her body beneath Alex, biting her lip as she watches herself be undressed. Rolling her eyes back into her head as Alex marks her territory with her toungue.

Alex makes a production of popping each button open, kissing a trail from Bradley’s neck to her breasts, her sheer black lace bra leaving little to the imagination.

“Hmm…” Alex slides her delicate fingertips beneath the wire of the bra, dancing against Bradley’s nipples and making her breath catch, “You put this on for someone to take off…I’m hoping that person's me.”

“Mhm…” Bradley can barely form coherent words at this point.

“Tell me you wore it for me.” And another button. And another one.

“Yes, God. I wore it for you. It’s yours, baby.” Bradley’s pretty Southern lilt on the last word— _baby_ —catches Alex off-guard and she pauses her trail of wet kisses at Bradley’s navel.

Alex strokes the soft skin above the waistband of her skirt and ponders, “I like it when you call me baby.”

Bradley’s brashness returns with her impatience, “I’ll call you whatever you want, Alex, just please don’t stop.”

“Much as I’d love to fuck you on a thirty-thousand-dollar couch, I think we need more room.”

Bradley heaves her frustration, but rises with Alex and follows her towards her bedroom. Before entering the hallway, Alex takes the opportunity to push Bradley against the enormous windows facing the New York City skyline. The vista never ceases to level her, even now. She’s quietly felt that way about Bradley since their first interview on The Morning Show.

Alex funnels the electricity of the cityscape into her kiss with Bradley. She shoves a hand roughly into the brunette’s open shirt and kisses her with abandon against the cool glass until Bradley puddles in her hands. Before Bradley collapses, Alex spins her around and holds her waist to look at the city once more.

“It’s all ours. See?” She points down at a giant electric billboard of their perfectly coiffed faces on a TMS ad.

Bradley nods her head, but turns back around. “I want to be all yours.” They kiss and paw at each other down the hallway to the point of where Alex thinks they might just fuck on the floor.


	3. Good Girl

Alex finally leads Bradley to the master bedroom—straight off the pages of Architectural Digest—but Bradley is singular in her focus and her desire and Alex is more than happy to oblige as long as she gets her way.

Bradley falls back against the edge of the bed making her skirt ride up. She spreads her legs eagerly in a wanton display of need that feels alien to her, but so right with Alex.

Alex takes only a second to admire the petite woman before ordering, “Off.” The blonde doesn’t wait for Bradley’s permission to push her blouse back down her arms and onto the bed.

“Damn, I thought I was bossy.” Bradley cocks her head and admires Alex’s toned physique as she lifts her sweater over her head. No bra, of course. Bradley knew that within seconds of entering her apartment tonight.

Bradley slips her hand behind her own waist to unzip her skirt, but she finds her wrists captured by Alex’s grip. Alex is incredible to watch when she wants something. Someone is no different.

Alex pulls Bradley up to standing and spins her waist around so she’s facing the bed. Without warning, Alex places her small but insistent hand on the center of Bradley’s back and pushes her facedown against the bed. Bradley moans at the implication of the position and braces herself with both hands as she arches her back.

Alex again needs to pause to appreciate the sight. She walks up behind Bradley and pushes her skirt up, admiring her ass and just a peek of a matching black thong.

Alex kisses goosebumps up the backs of Bradley’s thighs and across her ass, “Yeah, you definitely knew what you came for.”

If Bradley weren’t sex intoxicated, she might laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but her only coherent thought in this moment is that she needs to feel Alex inside of her. Being bedded by _the_ Alex Levy in her Manhattan fortress seems an extraneous detail.

Bradley licks her lips as she looks back at Alex who’s rustling through a dresser drawer. The lights are dimmed, but not so much that Bradley can’t make out an unmistakable shape in Alex’s hand from across the bedroom. Bradley is surprised when she moans aloud what she thought was a private sentiment.

When Alex slides the leather strap-on harness up her taut, tan legs, Bradley’s lips betray another, “Baby…”

Bradley would remark on how well-prepared Alex is for tonight, but stops herself when she admits she herself wore matching lingerie for a reason.

Seems like Alex is a powerhouse in more than one arena of her life, Bradley thinks, as the blonde deftly rakes her hands over the back of Bradley’s thighs and ass.

“Take them off now?”

“Hm?” Alex kisses up and down Bradley’s back as she lets her hands wander over her backside.

Bradley looks back at her bunched-up skirt and panties, already soaked.

“Oh…No; I can’t wait anymore.” Without warning, Alex guides the slick tip of the strap-on past Bradley’s panties, pushing them to the side.

Bradley groans a plea as Alex’s strap-on pushes against her quivering center.

With one long, slow thrust, Alex pushes inside Bradley up to the hilt. She marvels at how slick Bradley is and how this force of a woman comes to heel when she’s bent over with her legs spread.

“God…fucking damnit.” Bradley hasn’t felt pleasure that intense in she can’t remember how long. Her half-finished bartender fucks and any other one-night stands can’t compare to what Alex is doing inside of her.

Bradley surrenders to the instincts of her body and the whims of Alex’s dominance as she starts to fuck her at a steady tempo.

Alex feels the base of the strap-on butt against her throbbing clit as she fucks her beautiful cohost. She twists her hand around Bradley’s hiked up skirt, using it as an improvised harness to slam Bradley back against her as she thrusts inside her with abandon.

“Please…please, baby.”

Something about that tender word coming from the usually impenetrable Bradley whips Alex into a frenzy. She presses down on Bradley’s lower back to arch her deeper and bends her strokes upward to hit her g-spot.

With the shift in angles, Bradley moans Alex’s name and twists her fingers into the sheets as she holds on, bracing herself against the bed as she feels her inner walls quiver around Alex’s aggressive thrusts.

“Take it. Oh, God, it’s yours!”

Alex’s ego appreciates the soundtrack of their sex. She makes a mental note to trot out Bradley’s submissions to her in the cool, clear light of day. Maybe right before they go live on air so she can savor the blush on Bradley’s pretty cheeks.

Alex feels Bradley’s orgasm build and the friction against her own clit from the strap-on pushes her over the edge. She grabs the waistband of Bradley’s skirt with one hand and smacks her ass with the other as she thrusts into Bradley to the point of the younger woman’s collapse.

Bradley moans Alex’s name loudly as she comes with Alex pumping inside her. Even though Bradley’s spent, Alex doesn’t pull out right away. She lets Bradley quiver and quake around her as she kisses her back and explores her heaving breasts with her fingertips—gentle this time. She surveys the conquered landscape of Bradley’s frame, taking stock and committing every sensation to memory.

Bradley shudders as Alex pulls out of her, crumpling on the bed and looking back at Alex basked in the moonlight.

Alex unhooks the strap-on harness and lets it clink to the floor, smirking, almost leering at the younger woman. Bradley takes the opportunity to also shed the rest of her clothes and sit up, licking her lips.

Bradley’s fingertips rake over Alex’s body like they’ve starved for her. She plants hot, wet kisses around Alex’s navel as Alex snakes her hands in Bradley’s dark tresses, pulling her face against her skin.

“I want to make you happy.” Bradley hisses as her thumb traces a line down below Alex’s navel and finds her clit, wet and painfully swollen. She whispers, “Goddamn” as she starts to stroke Alex’s clit.

Alex’s lips betray a moan of not just want but need. She twists her fingers in Bradley’s hair causing Bradley to gasp at the sharp pain.

“Please, I need it.” Bradley looks up at Alex licks her lips. “Just let me.”

Alex pivots Bradley around so that Bradley is now off the bed and on her knees in front of Alex’s spread legs.

Bradley steals a glance behind her and chuckles, “Of course,” when she sees an enormous, gilded full-length mirror directly behind her on the wall reflecting the explicit scene.

Bradley surveys the sight of her own body naked and on her knees between Alex’s spread legs. Despite the vulnerability of Alex’s position, she’s propped up imperiously on her elbows like a queen in repose.

Bradley starts to kiss and nip up Alex’s thighs, “Do you always need to be the star of the show?”

Alex’s temper and impatience flair and she yanks Bradley’s head forward against her center, “Shut the fuck up.”

Bradley moans when her lips make contact with Alex’s soaking wet sex. She is overwhelmed by what to do first, so she settles on soft, slow, searching kisses inside her folds, tracing up and down Alex’s slit with her tongue.

Alex spends her time looking between Bradley lapping between her legs and the mirror which betrays the whole production in full view.

Bradley knows she’s become the object of Alex’s infatuation and she revels in it, despite her own feminist politic, despite her self-respect. In that moment, she wants nothing more than to be on her knees between the blonde’s splayed legs.

Bradley’s lips find their way towards Alex’s clit and the older woman moans from an animal plane.

“That’s it, baby.” Alex undulates her hips against Bradley’s jaw as she laps and sucks with abandon, “Good girl.”

Bradley whimpers at the sultry term of endearment and her fingertips find her way to her own aching clit. She rubs circles around it as she bobs up and down between Alex’s legs.

Alex leans back, gripping her sheets, already covered in sweat and sex from when she’d taken Bradley.

Bradley feels Alex’s hips buck more urgently and decides to up the ante by shoving two of her fingers deep inside her center, curling them upwards.

Alex groans, “Fffffuck.”

Bradley continues her aggressive ministrations with her fingers and tongue until she feels Alex grip and quiver around her.

Bradley whimpers between ardent tongue strokes, “I want you…to come in my mouth.”

 _As if she’d have a choice_ , Alex muses as she snarls her fingers into the back of Bradley’s hair and forces Bradley’s hot, wanting mouth against her aching core.

Bradley slides her fingers out and laps at Alex’s sex as she comes, eager to please and taking pleasure in her taste. Alex’s hand holds Bradley’s head still against her until the last wave of orgasm shudders from her lithe body.

Alex untangles her fingers from Bradley’s hair and runs her fingers through it as Bradley slowly laps up her mess. She can’t help but watch their moonlit silhouettes in the mirror—such brazen desire on full display.

“Wow, Bradley,” Alex muses, “Who knew you could take direction that well?”

Defiance flashes across Bradley’s face as she pulls away from Alex’s parted thighs. Her hunger for the other woman beats back any pride she might have in this moment, though, and she stands up only to sink back down on top of Alex, kissing her wanting mouth as they crawl back towards the head of Alex’s bed.

Alex pulls back the sheets and slides underneath. Bradley follows suit, the two never breaking contact as if they’d shatter into pieces if they did.

Now that the sex is over, an air of intimacy foreign to both of them hangs heavy in the air. It is at once comforting and disarming to both women who respectively steel themselves to any such distraction. The frenzied pace of their kiss slows and Alex pulls back to look away, overwhelmed by her feelings.

Bradley studies her with that interrogative expression she wields so well on air.

Alex, confident and domineering in most areas of her life, suddenly feels very naked and clutches the covers up to her chest, averting her eyes.

“No,” Bradley gently reaches for the balled up sheets and pulls them down and away from Alex’s body, “I want to see you.”

Alex flashes her trademark forced smile, a twinge of sarcasm staining her lips as she chuckles nervously, “Tada…Good enough to be featured on Page Six.”

“Stop.” Bradley breathes the command out like a prayer, catching Alex off-guard.

“I know I’ve told you this before and it was certainly under different circumstances,” Bradley traces the sharp cut of Alex’s hip with her fingertips, “but you can be vulnerable with me.”

Alex impulsively wraps the shorter woman up in her arms, hoping her touch will convey what her words cannot.

“Can I stay here tonight?” Bradley ventures, her hands playing at the small of Alex’s back.

Alex tenses, almost startled by the question and its implication. “Well, of course.”

Bradley didn’t have to say aloud to Alex that she was asking because she usually didn’t or couldn’t stay the night. Alex got that impression. Bradley relaxes in her arms.

“You can be vulnerable with me, too, you know,” Alex offers.

Bradley doesn’t nod but she doesn’t look away either.

“You certainly were tonight as I recall,” a flash of a grin tears across Alex’s face as she remembers how Bradley’s body yielded to hers just moments ago.

Bradley rolls her eyes to the heavens, scoffing. Still, she nestles against Alex’s body, relishing in the unfamiliar sense of safety.

“So where does this leave us, then?” Bradley mumbles against Alex’s chest.

“It leaves us on air in five hours. We should try to get some sleep.” Alex’s answer was cool but her touch belied a quiet tenderness and affection.


	4. Aftermath

“Aaaaand it’s a wrap!” The grip bellows over the closing credits as the cameras pan across all The Morning Show hosts in their last shot of the day. As always, Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson hold court front and center as the network’s royal couple. Chip Black gives the hosts thumbs up to signal they are over and out.

Alex’s hand lingers on Bradley’s bare forearm as the two pretend to joke about the last guest of the day. Bradley leans towards her body comfortably and banters back, swatting at her.

Bradley follows Alex offstage away from most, if not all, prying eyes. As always, Alex’s pace is slow and she swaggers a bit just for the benefit of the woman watching her. Alex knows this and smirks as she looks back at a now leering Bradley.

The two women startle from their reverie when Cory Ellison pounces on them, hands and smile wide to punctuate his excitement, “Holy shit!”

Alex cocks her eyebrow, icing over reflexively. Bradley notices and taps in to handle whatever Cory has in store.

“Did you ladies see yourselves out there today?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, “Well, I know you can see the video feedback of yourselves on camera six, but can you _feel_ the electricity? I mean, you both were great before but I feel like today…”

Cory pauses for dramatic effect, “Today is the day you have hit your _stride_. That television today was the type of television that makes your dick hard.”

Both women must have looked incredulous as Cory follows up quickly, “No, no, not like in a creepy Mitch Kessler way. I meant that…metaphorically speaking.”

Alex muses internally that Cory is perhaps the only person she’s ever met who can carry out a conversation between multiple people all by himself. She inhales to offer that retort, but Bradley has the good sense to cut her off.

“Thanks, Cory. Appreciate it,” Bradley nods, “Let’s go, Alex. Wardrobe’s looking for us for some test shots and I’d love to get the fuck outta here before three today.” The shorter woman circles her arm around Alex’s waist in one swoop and hurries her away from Cory, towards their dressing rooms.

They pass by Chip in the hallway who offers appreciatively, “Hey, that didn’t suck at all!” Resounding praise from the grizzled executive producer.

Alex rolls her eyes and Bradley flashes a fake smile only a Southern belle could muster, “Charmed.”

Bradley shepherds Alex into her dressing room. Chip looks up from his clipboard to watch the two women enter and notices Bradley’s hand resting dangerously low on Alex’s back. He looks around to see if anyone else catches his eye and sees what he sees, but as soon as he looks back for the women, the door of Alex’s dressing room slams shut.

“No fucking way.” He chides himself as he walks off.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors...“Well?” Bradley chuckles to herself as the two recline back on the loveseat, “What’d you think?”

Alex can’t bury her annoyance with their colleagues, “I think there’s no one on this earth that I don’t hate right now except for you.”

“Well shit, Alex,” Bradley teases, clutching her heart, “that might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Alex decides it’s not worth the effort to reply. She rakes her eyes over Bradley in her form-fitting dress, from her hips to her cleavage to her pretty face. She remembers it buried between her legs the night before and she closes the gap between them, leaning in to capture Bradley’s lips.

Bradley puts her hand up against Alex’s chest to stop her. Alex arches her eyebrow, not used to being denied.

“What did you think of the show?” Bradley tries to wrangle Alex’s attention which is apparently now single-minded.

“I think that what happened today is exactly what I said would happen. Fucking offscreen is the secret to really good on-air chemistry.” Alex shrugs her shoulders and brushes an imaginary piece of lint off her slacks, still stinging from being rebuffed.

“So that’s all _this_ is to you?” Bradley swirls around her hand between the two of them to emphasize whatever _this_ was.

Alex throws up her hands exasperated and more than a little flushed at the physical proximity between the two. “No. Well, yes. Well, I don’t know!”

“So, whatever happened between us last night was a ratings ploy? Kind of like lesbians kissing on UBA during Sweeps Week?” Bradley feels her voice raise and she knows she can almost never pull it back once she’s this fired up.

“I told you I liked you. I do. I think we work well together. Why does it have to _mean_ anything?” Alex spits, not realizing how cruel her question is until it cuts through the air like a knife.

Bradley flinches, then steels herself, not daring to look Alex in the face to preserve her own dignity.

“ _We work well together_ ,” Bradley whispers to herself.

“Bradley, please…” Alex reaches out for her hand and Bradley recoils.

“Got it. Loud and clear.” She stands up and strides away from the sofa, Alex isn’t quick enough to catch her this time and she explodes out of Alex’s dressing room door.

Just then, Chip turns the corner from the control room and witnesses the exchange between the two stars. Alex calls out Bradley’s name but halts and slinks back into her dressing room once she realizes there are several eyes on her. Bradley storms off, now slamming her own dressing room door shut behind her for good measure.

If he didn’t know better, he thought to himself, the scene looked like a lover’s quarrel. 


	5. T.G.I.F.F.

Bradley marvels at how the black Suburban cuts through Midtown Manhattan like a tank. The experience of her commute home from work now, drastically altered from even a month ago. She remembers taking the long way home from the local news station from Charleston in her older model mustang—how the beat-up car felt every bump and groaned at every stop.

Bradley feels, in so many ways, removed from the outside world now. “Plucked out of obscurity,” Alex said.

_Alex…_

While she’s loathe to admit it, Bradley can’t stop breathing her name like a prayer.

 _“Stupid.”_ Bradley thinks to herself. Alex knew what she wanted and the feeling was powerful but ephemeral. Transactional. She had bedded Bradley only to improve some metric on a UBA tester’s clipboard.

Bradley’s driver pulls up to her hotel. She thanks him and thanks God it’s Friday. At least she’ll have the weekend to lick her wounds and collect her pride from being so foolish.

“You take care now, Ms. Jackson.” The driver nodded.

Bradley had thus far become famous enough to not necessarily attract throngs of paparazzi, but she does turn heads as she enters her hotel lobby.

The P.A. Claire asked her this morning whether she planned to move from her hotel to a permanent address in the city. “I’d imagine you’ve got buckets of money now, Bradley,” she’d said brashly, “I think you can settle down somewhere and stay awhile.”

Bradley replays the conversation over in her head as she checks in with the concierge. She remembers her retort, “I’d rather not. Who knows when the other shoe will drop on this circus.”

A nomadic existence makes more sense for the reporter. She’d never signed a lease more than month-to-month. Never bought property or “put down roots” as her mom had asked her to so many times before.

Bradley finds it nearly impossible to stay—that is—if she’s not being directed to by one Alex Levy. Then she can’t move.

Bradley boards the elevator, hitting button seventeen. She lets herself sink back against the cool metal of the elevator and wills herself not to cry. She settles for banging the back of her head against the elevator once. Twice.

_Ding._

The elevator doors open and Bradley has never been happier to see no one as she hurries down the hallway and keys into her room, exhaling fully in what feels like the first time since she entered Alex’s apartment last night.

Bradley lets her purse fall on her armchair and shrugs her leather jacket off before collapsing on the bed. Lesser women would burst into tears, she thinks. Bradley twists her hands in the sheets and tries to forget every touch, every glance, of the woman who occupies every room of her mind.

\-------------------------------------

Alex massages her temples in annoyance as she mentally prepares herself to rise and leave this hellscape of a studio.

She hears a gentle rapping at her door, timid, almost apologetic.

Alex cannot beat back the hope that the knock belongs to Bradley and she springs from her vanity, ripping open the door.

Chip’s face contorts in surprise at first because of Alex's force and then because of the disappointment on her face when she sees it’s him.

“Well, shit. Nice to see you, too, Alex.”

“What?” Alex spits, squaring her shoulders.

“Uhhh…I came to bring you coffee not kill your kitten.” Chip sighs, lifting the craft services tray then his eyebrows.

Alex’s shoulders relax and she spins around, allowing him to come inside.

“Hey, do you want to tell me what the fuck is going on, or…?”

Alex curls her legs underneath her on the loveseat where she’d sat only a half hour ago beside Bradley.

“Nothing.” She pretends to check her phone, pulling her glasses on for added effect.

“Oh, okay.” Chip sits down beside her, studying his friend, “Bullshit.”

“You know, it’s been a really long, fucking week. And I am so sick and tired of people telling me what to feel or being mad at me for what I don’t feel.” Alex shot daggers as only she could, Chip thinks.

“What’s going on with Bradley?”

Alex rolls her eyes, and stares unwaveringly down at her phone.

Chip smirks, leaning over towards her, “You’re staring at your lock screen, Alex.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Chip chuckles as Alex slams the phone facedown on a side table.

“Nothing’s going _on_ with Bradley,” Alex steadies her voice, her jaw clenching with every word, “I’m just not sure how much I can take of her Podunk antics on _my_ show.”

Chip’s eyebrows raise at Alex’s statement. “You picked her, Alex—”

“Yes, and I have regretted it every _instant_ since.”

Chip sinks back into the loveseat, opting for silence. He’s known Alex now for fifteen years. He knows she needs to wind up to wind down.

“Latte.” He hands her a lidded cup and her body relaxes as she sits back and takes a sip.

“Is this almond milk?”

“They only had skim today.” Chip smiles, peering over at her, “Don’t worry, your ass still doesn’t look fat even with the camera’s ten pounds.”

Alex swats at Chip and smiles for the first time since she’d lead Bradley offstage with the switch in her walk.

“Why now?” Chip asks.

Alex, looks over from her caffeinated reverie, trying to reorient herself to his question.

Chip asks again, “Why now, when Bradley’s been Bradley since the first episode? You guys were great together today.”

Alex’s face darkens and she pulls her gaze away, “I guess her hometown truth-teller bullshit is wearing a little thin.”

“Is that all?” Chip lets the question hang in the air until Alex nods her head yes. As she does, she’s horrified to feel hot tears fall down her face, streaking her makeup.

“Alex,” Chip surveys her, alarmed, “What’s going on?”

“It’s just been a long week, that’s all.” Alex dabs under her eyes like a movie starlet, trying to save her mascara.

Chip leans over to rest a gentle hand on her shoulder but Alex recoils, “I need to call a car and you need to leave.”

 _“Thank God it’s fucking Friday,”_ she thinks.


	6. Revel

_“Baby…”_

Bradley looks down at her own nakedness and makes out the silver ghost of Alex between her legs, kissing up her sticky thighs.

Bradley kicks off her jeans, t-shirt haphazardly lifted as she strokes her bare nipples, moaning.

In her daydream, she feels Alex’s soft but ardent lips suck a mark on her inner thigh, laying her claim.

By this point, Bradley cannot hold back and dips a hand between her own legs, inhaling sharply at how wet Alex makes her even from a distance.

 _“I want you to ride my face…”_ She imagines Alex whispers against her dripping flesh.

Bradley gets up on her hands and knees in her dark hotel room, stroking her clit in furious desperation. Desperate for her touch. Alex would be so pleased, she thinks angrily, but she’s too turned on to stop.

Bradley imagines bucking downwards against Alex’s wanting mouth, her skilled tongue searching and lapping at her folds.

Bradley moans louder as she slides two fingers inside of herself, the stand-ins for Alex’s insistent tongue.

“Ffffuck me.” Bradley hears herself plea out loud, ego forgotten. Imagination all she has in this moment of unfulfilled desire.

She starts to pump them in and out of herself, letting her eyes roll back as she remembers Alex taking her roughly from behind.

Her mind clouds with the scent of sex and she cannot remain on one fantasy before another takes over—the way Alex takes over. Has taken over. Over and over.

“Alex, please.”

Bradley’s mind flashes with images of Alex. Arctic blue eyes glimmering in the moonlight. Leonine mane of long blonde hair. Petite but powerful legs, flexing and arching to thrust deeper inside of her.

Bradley shudders and her aching walls tense around her slick fingers, dripping wet. Bradley’s self-made orgasm is a necessity tonight but pales in comparison to the real thing. She heaves onto her bed and curls up into a ball, hugging herself, the cool hotel air sending chills over her wetness.

_Ding._

Bradley’s eyes flutter open in annoyance to look at her nightstand. She wants only sleep after this fever dream.

7:01pm. Claire Conway’s texted her. Bradley’s fond of the production assistant but wonders what she could want at seven o’clock on a Friday night.

“Hey Bradley! Sorry if this is really random, but a few of us from TMS have tickets to a drag show in Greenwich Village tonight. It doesn’t start until 9:00p. Shall you meet us there?”

Bradley’s instinct is to retreat into herself. What if her colleagues had seen the interplay between her and Alex on the show this morning? What if they know?

Claire’s name glows on her phone again.

“Please? Pretty please? I’ll buy you a Jack and Coke or whatever you Southern Americans drink :)”

Bradley has to smile at the girl’s insistence.

A drink that isn’t from a mini bar might do her good. She needs to get her mind off Alex. She reckons she won’t be tempted to go home with any of the drag queens, but they still might show her a good time.

“I’m game. Address?”

Claire answers and Bradley rises to rinse herself off in the shower. She thinks she might dress up tonight to spite the person last on her lips.

\-------------------------------------------------

“I’m so excited you came!” Claire squeals as she throws her arms around Bradley’s neck on the sidewalk.

The Village bustles with activity and Bradley can’t help but take a moment to look around this foreign landscape. Foreign in a good way. Drag queens, half made-up, take cigarette breaks outside the doors of the Stonewall Inn. Girls with short hair grab each other’s hands and make eyes at one another.

“Let me guess,” Claire giggles, “You’re not in West Virginia anymore.”

Bradley looks down, somewhat embarrassed by her own staring, “I’ve been around.”

The truth was, Bradley usually needed to drive to Philly to find any kind of “scene” when she lived down South. She settled for being alone most of the time. The fraught situation with Alex only affirmed her cynicism.

“Hello, darlings!” Claire calls out and wraps her arms around their colleagues Mia and Hannah, smooching their cheeks loudly and making all of them laugh.

“I am ready to throw some money at some divine creatures!”

“Cool it, Claire,” Mia cocks her brow, tempering the younger woman, “this isn’t a strip joint. I think they pass a basket around.”

Bradley laughs and sidles up to Mia, grateful for at least one other adult in their party.

“I don’t have a ticket, you know.” Bradley warns.

“I got it.” Hannah saunters off and begins to sweettalk the doorman pointing over at their party and flashing her best smile. Her eyes widen when the enormous, tattooed bouncer approaches the women, flexing.

Despite his lumbering size, his tenor lilt is soft and sweet, “Girl, don’t I know you?” He nods at Bradley, frozen in the street.

She’s still not used to this, “Uhhh…”

“It’s Bradley Jackson!” Claire shouts excitedly. She is anything but subtle, Bradley sighs to herself.

The bouncer studies Bradley for a moment and smiles wryly, “You’re quite an inspiration to all of us.”

Bradley isn’t certain who the “us” is but stammers a, “thank you.”

He looks her up and down again, a serious expression on his face.

“I had an abortion, too, you know.” The bouncer deadpans.

Bradley’s eyes widen and travel up and down his giant frame until he cracks up laughing.

“I’m just fucking with ya, honey. Come on in.”

Bradley, can’t help but smile as she ekes out a “what the fuck…”

The friendly bouncer escorts the women to a prime booth by the stage, close enough to enjoy the show but far enough away to take in the crowd.

Throngs of people laugh, dance and hug. Male, female, neither and a little bit of each. Bradley feels safe in New York for the first time since she’s arrived. Except for that fleeting moment when she was in the arms of…

“Alex Levy is such a bitch!” Claire grumbles to Hannah. “You could tell by the way she kicked poor Chip out of her dressing room today on his ass.” Mia and Hannah nod along, listening

“Then she storms out of the studio like a maniac. She’s got the world by the balls and still finds things to be upset about.” Claire rolls her eyes and takes a pull from her martini.

Bradley freezes and before she can stop herself, “That’s not true!” The power in her own voice takes her aback and she sinks deeper into the booth, staring down into her Manhattan. Three layers of dark alcohol and it can’t hit her soon enough.

“Oh…Uh. Sorry.” Claire looks from Mia to Hannah for backup.

“You have to admit she’s been pretty terrible to you, Bradley.” Mia offers, questioning Bradley’s defense.

“Yeah, I mean,” Hannah starts, “everyone saw your argument in the hallway today. I think maybe Ms. Levy doesn’t like our Southern belle eclipsing her limelight.”

“You know, I appreciate ya’ll are just trying to protect me, but…I don’t need it. Not from her. We’re partners and…” By that time three pairs of eyes are trained on her so Bradley takes a draw from her tumbler, “It’s complicated, okay?”

Bradley’s three colleagues exchange glances and suddenly become very interested in what one another have to drink.

The consummate reporter, Bradley is always scanning. She takes in the faces around her, her friend’s chatter becoming background noise. In an instant, a flashing light blinds her and she hears the unmistakable “click” of a camera lens. She chides herself for not knowing in what direction it came from because of the light.

“Relax, Bradley.” Claire wraps her arm around Bradley’s shoulders and whispers in her ear, “you’re among friends.”

Another flash and click, and Bradley suddenly feels very hot. Her eyes search for the bathroom and some reprieve but just as she starts to slide out of the booth the first chord of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” thuds through the bar and raucous cheers and applause fill the air. Bradley relaxes and tries to wear a smile for her friends’ sake.

“I made it through the wilderness!” Hannah and Claire serenade one another drunkenly as Mia and Bradley laugh along at the show on the stage and in their booth, “Somehow I made it throough-oo-ooh!”

\-------------

_Ding._

Alex rolls over in bed and picks up her phone. She’s retreated there all afternoon and evening, willing herself to sleep—trying to forget the events of the last few days, and especially trying to forget…

“BRADLEY JACKSON CANOODLES COLLEAGUE AT GREENWICH VILLAGE GAY BAR” PageSix's Twitter shouts from the notification bar.

“What?!” Alex shoots up in bed and clicks on the bar to bring her to the gossip account’s page. God knows she’s kept an eye on those assholes since they reported she was wailing around the studio like King Lear the night after she hired Bradley.

Alex expands the tweet to show a photo of Bradley looking sultry, gorgeous with her bare shoulders being whispered to and pulled close by that girl Claire from the show.

“The fucking P.A.?! Really Bradley?!”

Alex rips off her covers and notes the red glowing Neon sign of The Stonewall Inn in the background of the photo.

“How cliché.” She tuts to herself, tearing through her closet for the slinkiest backless top she can find. No bra.

She slides her Armani jeans up over her naked body and admires herself in the mirror. Her armor for the evening.

She hurries just a bit of makeup on her face and takes the time to do a dark, dramatic eye, fit for such an evening.

Alex slides on a diamond-encrusted Chopard watch with a black alligator strap. She can’t help but flex, especially around Bradley. She damns herself for it as she admires the diamonds encircling the watch’s oversized face.

With one text, a black town car appears outside her penthouse quicker than an Uber. She leans back into the leather seats and runs her hands up and down her thighs, preparing herself for whatever reception awaits her downtown.

Alex makes her way into the night to stake her claim.


End file.
